Power firms left with just seven days’ coal

In what could spell a serious trouble for the power generation in the coming months, more than half of India’s power plants are facing shortage in coal with less than seven days of stocks.

The ministry of power, said in a letter to the coal ministry , that 52 out of the 90 power stations in the country “continue to be in a critical stock state and hence need special attention”.

“Letters have been written to Coal India Ltd and the coal ministry without significant improvement,” power secretary P Umashankar told coal secretary.

According to the letter, the poor supplies were due to lack of proper evacuation and transport arrangements by subsidiaries of CIL, especially the Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd (MCL), Western Coalfields Ltd (WCL) and Eastern Coalfields Ltd (ECL) besides stoppage of mining works at various coalfields.

“Poor materialisation (coal supplies) from MCL, that had a materialisation of merely 74% in the April-October period, is affecting at least 20 out of the 52 critical power stations in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu,” he said.

“All the four power stations in Tamil Nadu are critical or super critical with Ennore and North Chennai having stocks for just three days.”

Out of 10 power stations in Maharashtra, as many as nine are super critical. The problem of six power stations of Andhra Pradesh is also similar and three out of six are super critical.

Five out of 14 plants in West Bengal are also super critical in terms of coal stocks on account of poor supplies from ECL and MCL. Power stations in UP are also having critical stocks, the letter said.

The power ministry said that mines situated in Maharashtra are also having a materialisation of merely 9%.